


Meteors

by sinestrated



Category: The Man From U.N.C.L.E. (2015)
Genre: Established Relationship, Hurt/Comfort, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-13
Updated: 2016-06-13
Packaged: 2018-07-14 22:08:40
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,975
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7192793
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sinestrated/pseuds/sinestrated
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Napoleon and Illya go to ground in different ways.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Meteors

**Author's Note:**

> I was really lazy about the research for this, so there are probably inaccuracies. Sorry about that.

Gaby dies in Vitebsk.

It is only for a moment—one minute, two at most, and after the medics and the emergency IV and Illya’s shaking hands and Napoleon’s complete, terrible silence, her heart starts up again, steady and strong as the person surrounding it.

But it’s not enough. Illya collapses back in his seat and looks at Napoleon across the length of the helicopter, his partner’s skin pale as a sheet and eyes glassy as he stares at their teammate lying still and white on the stretcher, and knows it somewhere deep in his bones.

Less than twenty-four hours later they are back at London HQ. The surgeon tells them Gaby will be okay, that the bullet punctured her lung but missed her heart, it’ll be a while but she’ll recover. Illya hunches over and can barely breathe through his relief. Napoleon says nothing at all, and turns and walks out of the medical wing.

Illya doesn’t follow, at least not immediately. He stays the night, and then the day after that, keeping vigil by Gaby’s hospital bed, her hand swallowed by his own. Waverly debriefs him there, and as he recalls the mission—Napoleon’s smirk, Gaby’s shout, the gunshot, the horrible high-pitched cry—he waits for the anger but doesn’t feel it. There is an emptiness inside him, a Gaby-shaped hole in his heart that can only be stitched up by soft brown eyes and tinkling laughter. He didn’t take the bullet for Napoleon, but staring at Gaby, so small and helpless in the hospital bed with machines hooked up to her like some lifeless automaton, Illya feels like he’s been shot all the same.

Waverly, at least, shows no cracks. Illya used to hate him for it—how, no matter how their missions went or how many people died or which one of them came home with fresh cuts and scrapes and knife wounds and bullet holes, Waverly never batted an eyelash. Illya used to think he didn’t care, simply considered them all expendable pawns on a very large, very old board.

He knows better now. Knows it in how Waverly sighs when Illya finishes telling the story, a long, weary exhale like an old, old man. Knows it in the way he nods and shuts the mission file with a definitive _whump._ Knows it in how the older man looks at him and softens his voice.

“Solo requested leave last night, and I granted it,” he says, and the look in his eyes could be meaningful, or could be nothing at all. “No one’s heard from him since. Perhaps you should go track down your wayward partner.”

And, as always, there’s a part of Illya that wants to say no. _I am needed here,_ he thinks, looking at Gaby, the paleness of her face and the soft, tentative rise and fall of her chest. He wants to stay. He wants to be there when she wakes up, to stroke her hair and drink in her smile and assure her, as he always does, that everything will be okay.

And it will be. Gaby is strong, the strongest woman he’s ever known, and she will understand. She will wake up when she wakes up, and not see Illya there, and she will be fine because she will know where he is.

She is the only one who knows where Illya’s loyalty truly lies. It is that, and nothing else, that allows Illya to nod at Waverly and leave the room.

He hits all of Napoleon’s usual spots first, of course—his flat in London, then his backup, and then the backup to that, each place more secretive and locked away than the last. When that turns up nothing, Illya makes the rounds of the art galleries, the fine coffee shops, the exclusive social clubs, Napoleon’s favorite tailor’s on Savile Row. No one has spotted him, they tell him, not in at least a week.

Which is how, later that evening, Illya finds himself standing on the steps of the National Gallery, staring up at the last receding rays of sunlight tracing their way across the old concrete.

No one pays him any mind as darkness descends and, stealthy and silent, he enters the building. He is no thief, as Napoleon constantly likes to remind him— _you’re far too decent for it, Peril,_ he’d said, soft and so fond—but he’s learned from the best. And he has a road map, a detailed set of blueprints in his head that Napoleon made him memorize that night in Bogota so long ago, curled up together under the covers like outcast children as they whispered their final secrets to each other. He still remembers the way Napoleon looked then, how the moonlight filtering in through the window painted his features pale and soft, brought out the shining blue in his eyes and the brightness of his smile and Illya remembers thinking, in that moment, _You are the only work of art I will ever steal._

It is why he left Gaby at HQ. It is why he counts on her understanding. It is why, with every lock that springs open and every alarm system that stays silent upon his approach, as if waiting—prepared—for his arrival, Illya’s heart sinks deeper and deeper into his chest.

He finally arrives at the museum’s deepest vault, the keeper of all its best secrets. The locking mechanism on the door is impossibly complicated, all tangled-up tripwires and silent alarms and electrical wiring enough to make his head spin. He doesn’t even remember the name of the model (though it’s definitely not a Swiss 7010), but he recognizes the deceptively simple-looking keypad at the center, shiny and polished from minimal use. After all, this is where the Gallery keeps all its most valuable acquisitions, the ones that are only removed when on loan or needing restoration. Hardly anyone ever comes down here, not without a reason.

The key code would probably take a full U.N.C.L.E. team a week to break. Without hesitation, Illya steps up and enters 8942, the last four digits of his serial number.

Clicks and whirs and the steady _thump-thump_ s of bolts sliding out of place, and the vault opens with a hiss. No alarms, no resistance. Illya sighs.

Taking a deep breath and squaring his shoulders, he steps inside.

The room beyond is small, maybe twenty by twenty feet, the air cold and musty, filled to the brink with priceless art. It’s dark, the only illumination coming from the overhead light spilling in behind Illya, and he takes a cautious step forward before pausing to sniff at the air.

Yes, there it is: under the smell of paper and paint and a thousand different chemicals, the unmistakable sour tinge of alcohol. And with it, a tiny movement in the corner of the room, a flinch in the darkness.

Illya walks toward it, and doesn’t bother to close the door.

Napoleon is a wreck. Illya smells it before he sees it, really, the pungent aroma of sweat, liquor, filth, and despair. He doesn’t let it stop him from reaching the corner of the vault, skirting around a Rembrandt—or maybe it’s a Van Gogh? He’s never been good at these things, Napoleon will laugh at him for it—and sinking down against the wall next to his partner.

Napoleon hasn’t showered or shaved in the last two days, jaw dusted with stubble and eyes sunken in his face as he stares listlessly at the floor in front of him. His hair hangs down in tired curls over his eyes, and he’s still wearing the suit from Vitebsk, shirt spotted with Gaby’s blood. Illya suppresses a shudder.

They sit there in silence for a moment, eerie and complete so far down under the ground. Illya listens to Napoleon’s breaths, short and hitched like a scared animal’s, and just concentrates on modulating his own. He’s been here before. He knows what Napoleon needs.

After what seems like an eternity, his partner finally shifts. Blue eyes dart to his face for an instant before quickly cutting away again. “Gaby?” Napoleon whispers, and his voice is like shattered glass.

Illya nods. “She will be fine.”

Another pause. Then Napoleon sighs, shaky. “Good. That’s good.”

There is the scrape of glass on metal as he lifts his hand, and without thinking Illya reaches out, grabs the bottle and tugs it out of Napoleon’s grasp. Liquid sloshes inside as he sets it on the floor with a soft _clink_. It is maybe half full.

“You have had enough,” he says, and it is true. This bottle cannot be Napoleon’s first.

Napoleon doesn’t answer. Up above, the ventilation system starts up with a cough, the fan taking up a soft whirring over their heads like a ghost whispering secrets. Illya listens to Napoleon breathe beside him, and waits.

Finally, after another moment, his partner lets out a shaky breath. “I’m sorry,” he whispers, voice cracking on the last syllable, and Illya hums, turns, and hauls Napoleon into his arms.

Napoleon goes without protest, curling into Illya with a shaky whine and tucking his face into his neck like a child trying to hide from the world. His entire body trembles and he feels all of a sudden fragile and small, fingers curled in the fabric of Illya’s shirt as if afraid he’ll vanish into the air if he lets go. It’s rare to see him like this, flayed open and raw, none of the mirrors and games and minnow-quick lies. It’s the part of him he guards from the world, the soft spot that can destroy him, and Illya hates seeing it. He hates that there are still dark things in the world that can cut Napoleon where it hurts, things that Illya can’t protect him from.

Not that he won’t try his damnedest to.

The darkness of his thoughts makes his grip on Napoleon tighten, and his partner makes a soft noise of protest, curling closer as if wanting to disappear into Illya entirely. Illya sighs and strokes down Napoleon’s spine, slow and comforting, and feels him relax somewhat. With his other hand, he grabs the bottle and takes a swig, the alcohol burning sharp and bitter down his throat.

Napoleon chuckles at that, more a soft, blown-out breath against Illya’s neck than an actual laugh. “Hypocrite.”

“Idiot,” Illya answers, pressing a kiss to Napoleon’s hair.

Napoleon sighs and doesn’t disagree. Still, Illya feels his smile against his skin, and allows that to buoy him up as he pulls his partner closer. It will take time before Napoleon builds his defenses up again, before Illya can once again be treated to dancing blue eyes and a mischievous smirk and a lightness in his heart only Napoleon can engender. Maybe it’ll be days, or maybe weeks, before Napoleon can smile and it will reach his eyes, but Illya knows, with the sureness of someone believing in something greater than God, that it will happen. Napoleon has bent but he hasn’t broken, and Illya breathes more easily knowing that, when they get back to HQ, he will be able to tell Gaby the truth.

Everything is going to be okay.

 

* * *

 

Out in the backwoods about thirty miles from Managua, Illya drops off the map.

The operation goes to shit pretty much immediately. In fact, it falls from _All assets accounted for_ to _Holy shit what the fuck is happening_ so fast it’s a wonder Napoleon’s ears don’t pop. Lacayo, the bastard, laughs at them as his boat tears away from the port, dead man’s switch held high in his hand. _Take a shot,_ he dares them, eyes glittering with maniacal glee. _Kill me and watch everyone die._

Napoleon grits his teeth and slams down hard on the accelerator. The truck leaps beneath him, vaulting over the muddy trail with a landing so hard he feels it in his teeth. He can’t slow down. He’s five miles out from the village, the men and women and children right now tending their farms and going about their business, unaware of the network of explosives wired into the dirt beneath their feet. And Illya’s got maybe three minutes before Lacayo’s out of sniper range.

It’s not enough.

He knows it even as he tries to urge more speed into the truck, foot to floor as the engine roars. He knows it as the trees and hanging vines slap at the windshield, accusatory. He knows it in the silence from Illya’s end of the radio: tense, desperate, complete.

They can’t let Lacayo escape. He’s got a set of nuclear launch codes in his head that U.N.C.L.E.’s _really_ concerned about, and a well of greed in his heart that will bow to the highest bidder. If they don’t kill him today, millions may die tomorrow.

It doesn’t stop the desperation, the raw cold _fear_ that grips Napoleon’s heart as he books it for the village. If he can just get there, if he can get them out…

Static hisses over the radio, followed shortly by Illya’s voice. “Cowboy?” It is small, anxious, like a lost child.

Napoleon glances at his watch and his heart sinks. One minute before Lacayo escapes. One minute to decide, and he is still four miles out from the village.

He grips the radio with shaking hands. “Illya,” he whispers, and can’t finish. The words don’t come, but he thinks them all the same. _I won’t make it. We can’t save them._

Silence on the other end. Napoleon presses his lips together and eases off on the accelerator, something numb and cold settling in his bones even as determination keeps him from saying anything more. He won’t condemn Illya to this. He won’t say it, the words that will make it a reality, that will make it so they failed.

A single soft, tremulous breath sounds out over their connection. Then Illya’s voice: even, cold, utterly without inflection.

“Taking the shot.”

Napoleon stops breathing.

The sharp report of a rifle in the distance echoes through the valley. Napoleon barely has time to close his eyes and bow his head before a deep, thundering _boom_ rises in the distance. The shockwave hits the truck sideways, throwing it off the road and Napoleon grips the wheel instinctively, tumbles with the car into the wet green, bites down on a scream and tastes a flood of blood in his mouth as the world flips, over and over and over.

He comes to sometime later, the truck lying on its side with his face smushed into the window. Everything is one giant bruise but nothing seems broken, and he manages to extract himself from the wreckage in a few minutes, stumbling into the dirt. The forest burns around him, ash and acrid smoke. He pulls his jacket over his mouth and nose and tries not to breathe it in. Tries not to taste the dead on his tongue.

When he finally makes it up to the lookout point an hour later, staggering like a drunk onto the ledge with the clear, beautiful ocean view, Illya is already gone. The rifle lies in the dirt, fallen sideways as if dropped. All their equipment is still there, sinking forlornly into the mud. Off in the distance, a single boat drifts on the water, empty.

Napoleon scouts the perimeter just in case, but finds no trace of his partner, the only indication Illya was ever there a pair of shallow bootprints near the edge of the ledge. He sighs, sends up a prayer to a god he doesn’t believe in, and sets about cleaning up.

He flies to New York the next evening and bullshits his way through all the debriefings that follow, the endless paperwork and meetings and angry conference calls. He’s honest about what happened, about Lacayo and the codes, the booby-trapped village and the hostages they couldn’t save. But he lies about Illya. Says Lacayo blew the village up himself, that Illya was too far away to stop him. Says Illya never fired. Says yes, he does know why his partner hasn’t shown up at HQ actually, he came down with dengue, don’t you people know anything about these things.

Waverly releases him after the third day. Gaby drives him to the airport, and on the tarmac she hugs him, her body slim and small in his arms. When she draws back she smiles, sad, and touches his cheek. “Take care of him,” she whispers. Napoleon swallows and makes no promises.

He flies to Canada—Saskatchewan, to be exact. It’s freezing at the airport, a blizzard even the locals don’t want a part of, and it only gets worse as Napoleon takes the truck up deep into the mountains. This high, he feels the cold in his very bones, sharp and aching even under the five thick layers he’s wearing, and as he pulls into the dark woods at the end of the road and stumbles into the trees, the wind howls at him as if angry, as if he’s trespassing. _Turn back,_ it seems to scream at every turn, every time it whips at his face with a scouring pain like being cut by glass. _You don’t belong here._

And it is right; Napoleon’s world is elsewhere. His world is colorful and bright and warm, full of smiles and laughter and tricks, fancy wine and fancier suits and the comfort of humanity around him like a blanket. It is nothing like this place, so icy and white and dark. He would not survive here; the silence would swallow him, would drive him insane with its eerie darkness and sinister landscape, nothing but cold as far as the eye can see.

This world belongs to someone else.

He comes upon the first booby trap a mile out from his destination. He spots the tripwire only because he knows to expect it, remembers it from that night in Bogota so long ago with a whispered voice and a finger tracing the air. Illya had still been so beautiful then, moonlight tracing his angular features and casting his hair soft and golden in the light. Napoleon barely managed to stay focused on what he was saying, the somberness of Illya’s voice doing nothing at all to detract from the brightness of his eyes or the pale curve of his bare shoulder, but he’s always been good at multitasking and he’s never been more grateful for that as he steps carefully over the wire and continues his journey through the woods.

Seven more traps with varying degrees of complication later, he finally comes upon the cabin. It’s a small thing, barely one room square, sitting there dark and forlorn in the snow like a lone sentry. A tiny line of smoke curls skyward up from the chimney. Nothing moves, no one acknowledging his approach as he tromps up to the door, shivering with cold.

The door is rigged too, of course, but Napoleon disables the trap with measured precision. He gets the second one too, and then the final tripwire beneath the floorboard. And then, finally, shutting the door firmly behind him to keep out the cold, he’s in.

The interior of the cabin is freezing too. Tiny red embers glow in the fireplace and Napoleon heads immediately for it, cursing under his breath at the frost that leaves his lips as he pokes and shoves at the burnt-out ashes, throwing on fresh wood and tinder until the fire roars back to life. Only then, with the cheerful crackling light, does he straighten and look toward the single bed shoved into the corner of the room.

Curled up beneath its thick, dusty covers, Illya hasn’t moved at all since Napoleon entered, hasn’t given any indication of knowing Napoleon’s even there. He’s lying on his side, just his blond head peeking out beneath the blanket, and his breaths are quiet and even, measured and automatic. For all intents and purposes, he’s dead to the world.

Sighing, Napoleon crosses the room and carefully draws the blanket back. If Illya feels the sudden rush of cold over his bare skin, he doesn’t show it; no furrowing of the eyebrows, no sudden flinch, not even any change in his breathing. He doesn’t move, doesn’t wake up at all as Napoleon gently turns him, checking for sores and other injuries. There are none, which means Illya must only have arrived here in the last day or so. Napoleon hopes he ate before he crashed.

He draws the blanket back over his sleeping partner and then sets about checking on the rest of the cabin. The shelves have got enough rations for a few days, and there’s an old pot in the corner they can use to melt snow. The windows have been sealed, and he can’t find any cracks in the walls, no places for heat from the fire to escape. No roaches, no rats. Probably too fucking cold for them anyway, why the fuck does Illya even have this place.

But Napoleon knows why. It’s the same reason he’s got backdoors to all the most secure vaults in museums around the world. Looking at his partner, still and asleep and completely vulnerable, Napoleon knows.

They all need a place where they can feel safe.

Illya doesn’t wake when, a few moments later, Napoleon slides into bed beside him. His breaths remain even and slow, but when Napoleon brushes a hand over his shoulder he does move, shifting to curl into Napoleon without thought or awareness. It hits Napoleon somewhere deep in the chest, watching Illya’s face smoothed out in sleep as he strokes his partner’s soft hair. For a man so used to being hurt by others, his body and mind used as little more than tools to be discarded into the dark, it’s almost frightening to see Illya like this, soft and vulnerable and entirely trusting. It makes Napoleon angry, that Illya has had to learn to cope like this, locking himself away from a world that’s too cruel for him to stand.

Then Illya makes a soft noise, just a huff of breath as he shifts closer, completely relaxed, and something in Napoleon softens. No, Illya shouldn’t have to escape like this, but there were years there when he’d had to do it alone, when all he had was the booby traps and the darkness to keep danger away. Now, though, things have changed. Now he has Napoleon to watch over him, to wake him in a few hours if he doesn’t do it himself, to support him as he struggles to his feet like a blind man, to encourage him to eat and stretch and take care of himself before he inevitably crashes again for another twelve hours straight. Napoleon will stand sentry for him against the night, will whisper to him when the nightmares come, will hold Illya in his arms and guard him against the dark things they are both too tired to fight.

There is hope there, Napoleon thinks, as he presses a hand to Illya’s chest, feeling the solid beat of his heart. Somehow, in the maelstrom of their lives, the whirl of mission after mission, blood and explosions and terrible, tragic decisions…through it all, they have managed to find each other. They fit each other like crooked puzzle pieces, whether it’s Illya patching Napoleon up in a dark gallery vault, or Napoleon curled around Illya as he sleeps through a grief-filled storm. One day, they will turn away from these things, these safehouses and traps and dark dark places, and they will turn to each other instead.

One day, they will seek each other out not as safety, but as _home._

It’s not much, but it’s enough.

**Author's Note:**

>  **Regarding translations:** All my works, including this one, can be translated without first asking my express permission. I ask only that you credit me as the original author and provide a link back to the original work. For anything other than translations, please ask first. Thanks.


End file.
